Needless Words From Geneva

March 11, 1985|The Morning Call

The plan was to have a 40-member congressional delegation on hand Tuesday in Geneva when the U.S.-Soviet arms control talks get under way. The idea was to show the Russians that there was bipartisan support in the Congress for the United States position and to be cheerleaders for our negotiating team.

Actually, the 40-member group has been depleted to something like 18 - eight members of the House and 10 senators.This came about because several of the 30 representatives who had signed on for the 72-hour junket in Geneva backed out when criticism about the spouse-accompanied trip surfaced.

With or without wives, however, it is difficult to grasp the value (and condone the expense) of this congressional mission to Geneva. The words of Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that the delegation's presence will convince the Soviets that "there is absolute solidarity in the Congress behind our negotiators" have the hollow ring of a junketer trying to justify a junket about them.

The senator and his colleagues could have just as effectively issued their statements of "solidarity" from Washington and saved the taxpayers a lot of money. Also, they would be much fresher and minus jet lag when they return to Capitol Hill later this week to transact congressional business.